The story of this place
One of Prague's original thirteen city gates, the Powder Tower was begun in 1475 as a grand ceremonial entrance next to the royal court. King Vladislav II laid its cornerstone, but when he moved his residence to Prague Castle the tower was left unfinished and half-decorated. It marked the start of the Royal Route along which Bohemian kings processed to the castle for coronation. In the 17th and 18th centuries the tower stored gunpowder, giving it its name — and nearly its destruction, for it was damaged during the Prussian siege of 1757. Restored in neo-Gothic style in the 1880s, its 44-metre-high gallery, reached by 186 steps, opens onto the roofs of the Old Town.